Multiple Goals and Tactical Behaviors in Social Conflicts1

The hypotheses of a multiple goals theory of conflict were supported in a study in which 264 American students reported on a conflict that they had experienced. The results showed that 95% of subjects had more than 1 goal during the conflict; social goals were more strongly activated than resource goals; subjects' tactical behavior was determined by the social goals; and effects of personal and situational variables on tactical choice were mediated by activated goals. Factor analyses identified 6 goals and 4 types of tactics.     

Cultural Styles of Conflict Management in Japanese and Americans: Passivity,Covertness, and Effectiveness of Strategies1

We asked 94 Japanese and 98 American students to report their recent experiences with interpersonal conflicts; they reported 476 episodes. The content analyses of these episodes were conducted in terms of desired and engaged conflict management strategies, effectiveness of chosen strategies, covertness of conflicts, and motives for covertness. Strategies other than simple avoidance were coded into four types, based on Falbo and Peplau's (1980) model. As a result, a particularly strong tendency to avoid conflict was found among Japanese subjects, who were motivated by both their desire to preserve relationships and their perceptions of shared responsibility. These findings were interpreted in terms of cross-cultural concepts of collectivism versus individualism (Triandis, 1989a) and independent versus interdependent self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).     

How Effective are Different Accounts of Harm-doing in Softening Victims’ Reactions? A Scenario Investigation of the Effects of Severity,Relationship, and Culture

In order to examine the effects of different types of accounts in terms of the victims' reactions, we presented 193 American and 186 Japanese participants with scenarios in which an actor unintentionally harmed someone and then gave one of five different accounts. We asked the participants to estimate how the victim would react (emotional alleviation, impression improvement, or forgiveness) to these accounts. The participants rated that the victims would make more positive reactions to the mitigative accounts (apology or excuse) but more negative reactions to the assertive accounts (the denial). Although the reactions to accounts became generally more negative when the harm was severe, the mitigative accounts were more likely to be accepted by the victim than the assertive ones. As compared with the Japanese, the Americans rated the victim as more increasing their impression improvement reactions to one type of justification but more decreasing it to the denial. However, these results did not match the cultural preference of accounts, thereby casting doubt over the validity of cultural efficacy theory.     

Cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict: interpretations of conflict episodes in the United States and Japan.

This article integrates theory from the cognitive tradition in negotiation with theory on culture and examines cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict. The authors predicted that although there may be universal (etic) dimensions of conflict construals, there also may be culture-specific (emic) representations of conflict in the United States and Japan. Results of multidimensional scaling analyses of U.S. and Japanese conflict episodes supported this view. Japanese and Americans construed conflicts through a compromise versus win frame (R. L. Pinkley, 1990), providing evidence of a universal dimension of conflict construal. As the authors predicted, Japanese perceived conflicts to be more compromise-focused, as compared with Americans. There were also unique dimensions of construal among Americans and Japanese (infringements to self and giri violations, respectively), suggesting that identical conflict episodes are perceived differently across cultures.     

A Cross-Cultural Study of Preference of Accounts: Relationship Closeness,Harm Severity,and Motives of Account Making1

We presented 174 American and 169 Japanese subjects with scenarios in which an actor unintentionally harmed someone. We asked them to rate the likelihood of each of 6 different account tactics and 3 motives of account making. Collectivists (Japanese) were found, compared with individualists (Americans), to show more preference for the mitigating accounts, such as apologies or excuses, but less the assertive accounts, such as justifications. The collectivists’ mitigating style became distinguished, particularly when the participants were in-group members; and also gender differences were larger among collectivists than among individualists. Harm severity was an independent and powerful determinant of account choice: The causal analysis of the motives revealed that each account tactic was uniquely motivated, and that its supposed motivational process was quite similar between the two cultural groups.     

Apology as aggression control: its role in mediating appraisal of and response to harm

Two studies examined the effects of an apology on a victim's aggression and explored the psychological mechanisms underlying such effects. In Study 1, female undergraduates were psychologically harmed and then received an apology by another female student. In Study 2, male undergraduates were asked to role play a victim in a hypothetical harm situation. Results indicate that when the harm-doers apologized, as opposed to when they did not, the victim-subjects refrained from severe aggression against them. Regression analyses suggested that such aggression-inhibitory effects of an apology were mediated by impression improvement, emotional mitigation, and reduction in desire for an apology within the victims. It was also found that when the harm was severe, such effects of an apology on aggression were attenuated. The more severe the harm is, the more extensive of an apology may be needed to alleviate the victim's anger and aggression.     

Cross‐national examination of the perpetrator–victim account estimation bias as a function of different types of accounts

In two cross‐national studies, we investigated the existence of a perpetrator–victim account estimation bias and how this bias can be reduced or eliminated when estimating the perpetrator's use of a mixed account; that is, an account in which the perpetrator not only apologizes but also explains mitigating and justifiable circumstances. Japanese and American participants took either the perspective of the perpetrator or the victim and estimated the likelihood of the perpetrator's use of each account. The results supported our hypothesis in both national samples. The implications of the bias and the role of the mixed account in reducing it are discussed.     

Attacker's intent and awareness of outcome,impression management,and retaliation

Female Japanese students who were engaged in a calculation task were given electric shocks by a female opponent. The subjects were informed that the opponent had an intent to shock them either severely or mildly. In addition, the opponent's awareness of the outcome of attack was independently manipulated: (1) the subjects received shocks whose intensity corresponded to the opponent's intent, (2) the subjects received shocks whose intensity was inversely proportional to the intensity intended by the opponent and were informed that the opponent did not know about it, or (3) the subjects received reversed shocks as in condition (2), but were further informed that the opponent was well aware of it. An ANOVA of the measure of retaliation in terms of the intensity of shocks delivered to the opponent indicated that (1) the subjects showed more aggression of greater intensity against an opponent who apparently had an aggressive intent than the one who did not, regardless of the actual level of shock intensity; (2) when the severe attack failed, the subjects lowered aggression when the opponent was apparently aware of it as opposed to when she was not; and (3) when the subjects received severe shocks accidentally, they increased aggression when the opponent was apparently aware of it compared to when she was not. These results led us to interpret retaliation as being mediated both by the attribution of intent to the attacker and by self-presentation to the attacker and the experimenter.     

Induction of arginine vasopressin-enhanced green fluorescent protein expression in the locus coeruleus following kainic acid-induced seizures in rats

Seizure causes autonomic, neuroendocrine and stress responses. We examined the effects of kainic acid (KA)-induced seizures on the expression of the arginine vasopressin (AVP)-enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) in the locus coeruleus (LC), an area known to contain noradrenergic cells, in AVP-eGFP transgenic male and female rats, with the rationale to identify stressors which induce AVP synthesis in the LC. Subcutaneous (s.c.) administration of KA caused a progressive development of seizure behavior within 24 h. AVP-eGFP fluorescence in the LC was detected 6, 24, and 48 h and 1 week after administration of KA (12 mg/kg). From a nearly undetectable level, it reached a maximum at 48 h after s.c. administration of KA and returned to the basal levels after 2 weeks. AVP-eGFP fluorescence in the LC after s.c. administration of KA was significantly reduced by the pretreatment with MK-801 (nonselective N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist). In the KA-administered rats, immunohistochemistry for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) revealed that the eGFP fluorescence was co-localized with TH-immuno-reactivity in the LC. These results suggest that the synthesis of AVP-eGFP is potentially up-regulated in noradrenergic neurons in the LC after KA-induced seizures through the activation of NMDA receptors.     

Anger, Blame, and Dimensions of Perceived Norm Violations: Culture, Gender, and Relationships

From a social cognitive perspective on anger, we attempted to examine the structure of perceived norm violations and their relationships with anger. We asked 884 university students from 4 countries (United States, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong) to rate their experiences of being harmed in terms of norm violations, angry feelings, blame, and relationship with the harm doers. We found 2 culturally common dimensions in perceived norm violations (informal interpersonal norms and formal societal norms), and these dimensions substantially increased both angry feelings and blame in almost all cultural groups. The violation of interpersonal norms generally evoked anger more frequently than that of societal norms, but there were interactions between culture and relationship closeness and between gender and relationship closeness.